Global Research

Syria

Everyone knows that the U.S. and its allies have heavily backed Islamic terrorists in Syria in an attempt to implement regime change in that country.

But did you know that the U.S. previously carried out regime change in Syria?

The CIA backed a right-wing coup in Syria in 1949. Douglas Little, Professor, Department of Clark University History professor Douglas Little notes:

As early as 1949, this newly independent Arab republic was an important staging ground for the CIA’s earliest experiments in covert action.
The CIA secretly encouraged a right-wing military coup in 1949.

The reason the U.S. initiated the coup?  Little explains:

 In late 1945, the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) announced plans to construct the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line (TAPLINE) from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterra- nean. With U.S. help, ARAMCO secured rights-of-way from Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.  The Syrian right-of-way was stalled in parliament.

In other words, Syria was the sole holdout for the lucrative oil pipeline.

(Indeed, the CIA has carried out this type of covert action right from the start.)

In 1957, the American president and British prime minister agreed to launch regime change again in Syria. Historian Little notes that the coup plot was discovered and stopped:

On August 12, 1957, the Syrian army surrounded the U.S. embassy in Damascus. Claiming to have aborted a CIA plot to overthrow neutralist President Shukri Quwatly and install a pro-Western regime, Syrian chief of counterintelligence Abdul Hamid Sarraj expelled three U.S. diplomats ….

Syrian counterintelligence chief Sarraj reacted swiftly on August 12, expelling Stone and other CIA agents, arresting their accomplices and placing the U.S. embassy under surveillance.

Neoconservatives planned regime change in Syria once again in 1991.

And as Nafeez Ahmed notes:

According to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009: “I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business,” he told French television: “I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria.”

Leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, including notes from a meeting with Pentagon officials, confirmed that as of 2011, US and UK special forces training of Syrian opposition forces was well underway. The goal was to elicit the “collapse” of Assad’s regime “from within.”

Iraq

Everyone knows that the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein during the Iraq War.

But did you know that the U.S. previously carried out regime change in Iraq?

Specifically, the CIA plotted to poison the Iraqi leader in 1960.  In 1963, the U.S. backed the coup which succeeded in killing the head of Iraq.

Recently, Iraq has started to break apart as a nation.   USA Today notes, “Iraq is already splitting into three states“. Many say that is by design … a form of regime change.

Iran

Everyone knows that regime change in Iran has been a long-term goal of the hawks in Washington.

But do you know that the U.S. already carried out regime change in Iran in 1953 … which led to radicalization of the country in the first place?

Specifically, the CIA admits that the U.S. overthrew the moderate, suit-and-tie-wearing, Democratically-elected prime minister of Iran in 1953. (He was overthrown because he had nationalized Iran’s oil, which had previously been controlled by BP and other Western oil companies). As part of that action, the CIA admits that it hired Iranians to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its prime minister.

If the U.S. hadn’t overthrown the moderate Iranian government, the fundamentalist Mullahs would have never taken over. Iran has been known for thousands of years for tolerating Christians and other religious minorities.

Hawks in the U.S. government been pushing for another round of regime change in Iran for decades.

Turkey

The CIA has acknowledged that it was behind the 1980 coup in Turkey.

Afghanistan

The U.S. obviously bombed the Taliban into submission during the Afghanistan war.

But Hillary Clinton and then-president Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser have both admitted on the record that the U.S. previously carried out regime change in Afghanistan in the 1970s by backing Bin Laden and the Mujahadin … the precursor to Al Qaeda.

Libya

Not only did the U.S. engage in direct military intervention against Gadafi, but also – as confirmed by a group of CIA officers – armed Al Qaeda so that they would help topple Gaddafi.

Indeed, the U.S. has carried out coups and destabilization campaigns all over the world … creating chaos.

And see this.